


White Horse

by Ivyaugust



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Anxiety, F/M, Mention of sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:01:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25714708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ivyaugust/pseuds/Ivyaugust
Summary: Annie reflects on her relationships before leaving Greendale to become her own person.(Previously titled ‘Annie’s Epiphany’)
Relationships: Annie Edison/Jeff Winger, Character Study - Relationship, mention of Annie Edison/Abed Nadir, mention of Jeff winger/britta perry, mention of Troy Barnes/Abed Nadir
Comments: 22
Kudos: 27





	White Horse

As Annie drives away from Greendale, her old life in her rearview mirror, she plays a slideshow of memories in her brain. Jeff and Abed being in the car with her make it really difficult to properly grieve the loss of her friends though, so she doesn’t fully break down until she and Abed hug goodbye at her gate and he walks away, waving at her from over his shoulder. It’s not often that Abed cries, but she can tell he’s in a hurry because he’s trying to hide the tears brimming his eyes. 

Annie sits at her gate, placing her pink backpack in her lap, smoothing out the creases in the front. Today she had to say goodbye to everyone, and everything she had ever known and loved. She had spent the past year preparing herself for this after Troy had left. After that, the group’s separation felt inevitable. As if they were just waiting until they had no other choice than to move on with their lives the same way Troy and Shirley had. It was hard at first, but the more time passed, the more Annie adjusted to the idea of a fresh start and a new life for herself. There wasn’t much left for her in her hometown, and most of all, Annie knew she couldn’t move on from Jeff as long as she was at Greendale. Annie touched two fingers to her bottom lip, remembering her and Jeff’s private goodbye. As sad as she was, Annie had to admit that leaving Jeff in the past was the best path she could possibly set out on. She had spent the past six years fawning over an idea rather than a person, and she knew that someday, teenage Annie would have to stop dreaming of princes coming to rescue her, as if it would solve all her problems. She had to be adult Annie now. Adult Annie had a lot to learn about herself, and that was exciting. But also… terrifying.

If only it was actually as simple as waking up one day and suddenly being an adult. It was miserable, the weird period between. She had fought so long and so hard for respect, to be seen as equal to her adult peers. It was a relief to know that wherever she was going now, this time she actually was an adult. She wasn’t pretending, hoping, or dreaming. She could finally stop fighting and get the chance to prove herself. To get the respect that she deserved. Somewhere between that first kiss with Jeff, and this moment now, she had grown up. She didn’t know when, or what had allowed for it, but it meant that she finally had to acknowledge the ugly truth. Jeff was holding her back. 

Jeff had been everything to her for so long. A constant goal to chase after in her free time. Well, that was the nice way of putting it. The reality was that she had been obsessed with the idea of winning him over. When she allowed Jeff to get inside her head, she turned into a bumbling teenage mess all over again. Part of her wondered if he did it on purpose, keeping her interested so his options could stay open. Or even just because he desperately needed the validation. Only recently had she started to realize that she and Jeff were never going to work, and she had come to peace with that. She had seen the effect that Jeff had on her and she wanted no part in being that person anymore. She may be an adult now, but she still had a lot of growing up to do. Greendale, Troy, and Abed had kept Annie young, and this was never a bad thing. She liked playing games with her friends, drinking cold hot chocolate, obsessing over her grades and playing the floor is lava. Troy and Abed never made her feel like that was a bad thing. After years spent together, their childlike imaginations and free spirits had rubbed off on her, and she had learned from them that it was okay to stay young while you can. But Jeff especially had kept her young. He knew that when he snapped his fingers, she would come running, and he used that to his advantage every time he got the chance. She was held at arm's length until she could start to move on, and he would sense her growing distant. That was always when he pulled her back in, keeping her suspended in the belief that if she waited long enough, did the right thing enough, eventually they would ride off into the sunset together. 

She spent years chasing Jeff. Years where she would’ve done anything for him. He’s the one who had turned her down. He didn’t want her until he knew he was about to lose her, and that just didn’t seem fair at all. Granted, there was a good reason why Jeff had turned her down, and she understood that now. A perk to growing up, she supposed. She had been a child when she met Jeff. The first time they had kissed. Jeff and Annie had started out wrong, and things with them could never end right. At least not in marital bliss, with a kid and a white picket fence. Annie had ambition and brilliance and she was moving onto bigger and better things. She wasn’t a “kiddo” anymore. Kids didn’t have to get a job, pay taxes, make dinner for one every night. Kids didn’t have to find their own apartment, in a town all by themselves. That made her want to cry more than anything. 

Annie couldn’t imagine her life without Britta and Abed. Letting go of Troy had already been hard enough. She and Abed had worked hard to learn how to get along without him, and now they had to learn separately how to deal with the loss of each other. He was her best friend in the world, and she was half tempted to call, quit her internship, and follow him to LA. There were worse ways to live than an “Annie and Abed in LA” spinoff. And Britta. Britta had stayed behind with Jeff. Annie hoped that someday Jeff and Britta would realize that they were the ones who were supposed to be together. To learn how to make each other happy. Someday they would teach each other to love themselves. They loved each other deeply, but she didn’t see either of them admitting to that any time soon. So instead she crossed her fingers that in the meantime, Britta would find something she could love more than Jeff. Something she could love more than bartending. Something she could make a life with. Britta deserved that. 

But she still couldn’t keep her mind from drifting back to Jeff. She knew that they loved each other. But that wasn’t enough. Love didn’t make up for the panic attacks that she had suffered. Love didn’t make up for the emotional whiplash. It didn’t make up for feeling like she was doing something wrong simply for being herself, because herself was never quite enough for him. He loved her, but never the way she had needed him to. He had taken advantage of her naivety, and it had twisted her already skewed perception of what love should look like. The more she grew up, the more confusing he became. The older she became, the more they grew apart.  
She had followed him around, tweaking and editing her traits, designing herself to fit something she thought he might want to keep for himself, instead of finding out who she really was. She felt a little guilty to harbor any disdain toward Jeff, because she did love him. But she didn’t want to fight for him anymore. It just wasn’t worth the energy, her batteries were running low, and she wasn’t any closer to learning who adult Annie was. 

Of course Troy and Abed would always insist that they knew who she was, even when she didn’t. Troy had always been good at grounding Abed and Annie in their sense of self when their emotions ran wild. They both had a tendency to spin out the moment things weren’t going their way, so it wasn’t much of a surprise that they took it so hard when Troy left. For months afterwards, Abed and Annie clung to each other. She opened up to him about feeling like she had lost herself to a childish crush, and he didn’t have to say anything for her to understand that he had lost so much more than that. It was then that she and Abed slept together for the first time. Her first time since high school. Afterwards, they held each other in silence, both of them too afraid to admit to themselves that they were merely filling the void they each felt in themselves with each other. They became inseparable after that. They learned how to recognize when the other person needed them, and they helped each other heal. Sometimes that meant having sex, but mostly it meant holding Abed through his sleepless nights. Stroking his hair and nervously waiting for him to blink, to speak, or to fall asleep. Or it was Abed talking Annie down from her panic attacks, the familiarity of his voice washing over her and slowing her breathing back to normal. Just having him around helped. She didn’t need much from him, other than the confirmation that he cared about her and that if she ever did need anything, that he would provide it for her in a heartbeat. As long as he was near, she was comfortable. But the nature of their relationship didn’t exactly make it easy for Annie to learn who she was and what she wanted in a relationship either. She desperately needed to learn how to do things on her own before she could begin to worry about that. 

Annie anxiously twirled a strand of her hair, watching as her flight began boarding. This was it. There was no turning back from this decision now. She remembered what Abed said about keeping a loose grip. “The time we spend in control of our world, is the time we spend letting go of others.” She wasn’t sure exactly what he meant by it at the time, but it was making more and more sense with every passing minute that she waited to board the plane. She wanted nothing more than to grab everything she had found at Greendale and stuff it into a jar. To keep it safe and unchanged for years to come. But it had already changed. Pierce was gone. Shirley was gone. Troy was gone. And now, even Abed was gone. It was time for her to move on too, because she knew that if she didn’t, she would lose so much she never knew she could’ve had. If she hadn’t been so eager to let go of her memories of high school, she might not have ever found the study group. If Greendale had taught her anything, it was that she shouldn’t be afraid to step out of her comfort zone and try new things. So Annie swallowed her fears and wiped her palms on her jeans, making a promise to herself. Firstly, that she would never allow another man to treat her the way Jeff had treated her.. Secondly, a promise that this was going to be okay. She would still be Annie when she landed in Washington, and her friends and all their stories would still exist here for her to go back to whenever possible. “This isn’t goodbye,” Abed had reassured her earlier that morning. “We still have to make the movie, remember?”  
That made her smile, but it also made it even harder not to cry as she boarded the plane.  
If things never change, there is never a chance for things to get better. Adult Annie knows that now.

**Author's Note:**

> Ah hello. I know this was a bit messy, but I was working through something, and Annie helped a lot, so I kinda just word vomited most of this. Hope you enjoyed it though!


End file.
